"We can recognize a thousand, two thousand corporate logos, it is said, but typically fewer than 10 plants and animals native to our region..."
(David Orr, January 13th, 2006, University of British Columbia.)
Or for that matter, not only is there a gap in ecological literacy, but also in scientific literacy. In that respect, I gave a talk recently where I explored this aspect a bit, and came up with an interesting way to tweak the Nike swoosh.
This is a quicktime file (one of the cool features of using Keynote - click on the movie to go through the four or so slides)
Note that powerpoint slides can be downloaded at the FILTER.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Note: On 4 March, Birds in the News will be one year old!
The newest Archaeopteryx fossil.
Click image for a slightly larger view in its own window.
Birds in Science
A mutant chick, called Talpid, that died before hatching 50 years ago, was found to have a full set of crocodile-like chompers, as…
Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years'…
Taking the Plunge
(Female Belted Kingfisher, Ceryle alcyon).
Image appears here with the kind permission of the photographer, David Seibel, who writes;
"I never realized, until freezing the motion with my camera, that kingfishers dive from
their perch with wings completely folded. I've captured…
Anna Kushnir was one of the first bloggers on the Nature Blog Network, she writes a personal food blog and recently started running the JoVE blog. We first met at the Science Foo Camp last August, then at the Foodblogging event in Durham, then at the Millenium conference at Harvard, then at the…
Oh, I remember that sentence - I heard Orr speak a few years aog at our school. Fascinating.
But my "native region" is not rural. The region I inhabit is highly urban; what animals and plants are growing out beyond the suburbs are just as relevant to me and my daily existence as the plants and animals in, say, West Africa. Interesting, fascinating and I intend to visit one day, but meanwhile it's just not a category of objects that I have any reason do devote perceptual and cognitive capacity to discriminate.
I'm not being out of touch with my environment - on the contrary, it's the hypothetical inner-city dweller that knows all about plant and animal life in some distant spot but does not recognize the features in the place he inhabits everyday that is the one out of touch.